Drinks Adventures - Wine, beer, whisky, gin & more with James Atkinson

Haydon Morgan and Damien Ryan are the founders of First Light Brewing Co, a start-up in Wollongong, NSW.

You may recall Haydon’s voice from the special documentary episode we did on Australian brewing legend Chuck Hahn a few years ago now.

Haydon and Damien are both longstanding residents of the Illawarra region and they met each other while working at Lion, where they realised they had complementary skillsets for setting up a brewery of their own.

Haydon finished up with Lion in 2023 as brewery manager for the craft beer division, and Damien, a drinks industry sales veteran, exited the business this year.

With such an accomplished brewer at the helm, I had no doubt whatsoever that First Light will be putting out some superb beers.

But I was interested to hear a bit more about their business model, given some of the challenges the beer industry is currently facing, as previously explored on the Drinks Adventures podcast throughout 2024.

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In this episode we meet Ian Schmidt and Vic Orlow, founders of South Australia’s Tin Shed Distilling, the company behind Iniquity Whisky and other brands.

The original tin shed was in Adelaide’s inner west, adjacent to Ian’s other business manufacturing flagpoles, of all things.

Ian has since exited the flagpole game to focus on whisky, and he and Vic have relocated their distillery to a different tin shed in the Adelaide Hills.

There, they will soon be able to open their doors to the public for the very first time in the company’s history.

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In this episode we meet two of the founders of Queensland Rum Day, Matt Hobson of Cavu Distilling and Nil Desperandum Rum, and Duncan Littler of Bundaberg Rum.

The second ever Queensland Rum Day is coming up this Saturday 2 November 2024, and this year brings with it a special collaborative rum showcasing liquid from four distilleries, two of which I’ve already mentioned – the others being Beenleigh and Kalki Moon.

They’re calling themselves The Rum Consortium, and there are just 1920 bottles available of their 2024 Limited Edition Blend, which is the first ever time that stalwarts Bundaberg and Beenleigh have ever combined their spirits in the same bottle.

I caught up with Matt and Duncan to find out about this historic rum release, the evolving rum industry in Queensland, and the significance of this new event that I expect we will be hearing much more about in years to come.

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This is a special episode of the show looking at the future of Australian wine, produced in partnership with Endeavour Drinks.

First up, we meet Endeavour’s head of fine wine, Andrew Shedden, who sets out the challenges that the category is currently facing.

In short, those of us who love wine are getting older, and we’re not buying as much as we did in the past.

And younger consumers are choosing to drink beverages other than wine, which is facing tougher than ever competition from beer, spirits and premix.

Andrew says it is incumbent on the wine industry to rethink its approach if it is to appeal to these younger consumers, and that means challenging the accepted conventions: everything from the liquid itself to packaging formats, labelling, branding, marketing and how we talk about wine.

Also this episode I speak with a couple of producers who have done just that; Cam Marshall of Range Life Wines in Victoria, and Rod Micallef of Zonzo Estate in the Yarra Valley.

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We welcome back to the show Daniel Motlop of Seven Seasons Spirits, who we previously met back in May 2021.

Coming up, Daniel reveals that Seven Seasons has returned to majority family ownership following the demise of his former business partner and distributor, Mighty Craft.

Mighty Craft backer Pure Asset Management has emerged as Daniel’s new business partner and together they have big ambitions for the brand that has showed so much promise with its innovative products showcasing Australian native ingredients, led of course by Green Ant Gin.

We get an update on the Seven Seasons whisky that was developed by Daniel in collaboration with another previous podcast guest, Mighty Craft head distiller George Campbell, who has since returned to Islay to take up the job as distillery manager at Laphroaig.

Seven Seasons has also announced a new distribution agreement with Amber Beverage Australia, so first up in this episode I spoke briefly with founder and CEO Patrick Borg about the latest addition to his portfolio.

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Nelson Hernandez is master distiller at Venezuela’s Diplomatico Rum, where he has worked for an incredible 38 years.

After studying mechanical engineering, Nelson initially worked in the oil industry before taking a job in 1986 as Maintenance and Project Manager at the Diplomatico distillery.

Working alongside rum master Tito Cordero, Nelson learnt the craft of rum production the Diplomatico way, which means applying the highest quality standards at every step of the rum-making process from the sourcing of raw materials to the bottling.  

As you heard at the top of the show, Nelson relishes the opportunity to convert whisky and cognac enthusiasts over to Diplomatico’s super premium rums led by its flagship Reserva Exclusiva blend, the perfect rum for sipping and elevating classic cocktails such as the Old Fashioned.

The Diplomatico brand is ranked number one globally in the super premium rum segment and Reserva Exclusiva is currently having a bit of a moment here in Australia, growing 22 per cent year-on-year.

So in this special episode of Drinks Adventures – produced with the support of Diplomatico – I sat down with Nelson to find out a little bit more about the brand’s Venezuelan provenance, and the production methodologies that set Diplomatico Rum apart from its peers.

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We're joined this episode by James Bruce, who together with school friend Stafford Fox founded StrangeLove Beverage Co in Byron Bay, Australia, in 2012.

StrangeLove is an unlikely story of entrepreneurialism that began with a single product –StrangeLove Organic Ginger Beer Energy Elixir – ‘a ginger beer so hot it was almost undrinkable’ that also contained functional ingredients like green tea and yerba mate.

Over an at times tumultuous decade in which James and Stafford were continually running out of money, the StrangeLove offering evolved into a portfolio of adult soft drinks, mixers and mineral waters that proved so popular the business was ultimately acquired in 2022 by Asahi Beverages.

This episode of Drinks Adventures was produced in partnership with StrangeLove, which has this year come on board as a sponsor of the show.

So, I’m excited to share with you the StrangeLove origin story in this conversation with James, who reveals there is a new chapter on the horizon for the company involving its first ever foray into the arena of alcohol beverages.

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Michael Fragos is chief winemaker and general manager at McLaren Vale winery Chapel Hill, which this year celebrated its 50th vintage.

Michael has been with the company for the last 21 of those vintages. So, in this special episode of Drinks Adventures – produced in partnership with Chapel Hill – he shares his insights on the winery’s evolution and the attention to detail that defines its winemaking process.

This meticulous approach has this year inspired the release of a new flagship wine, The Devil Shiraz 2020, which plays on the saying, ‘the devil’s in the detail’.

We’ll explore that new release in this interview with Michael, along with some of the experiments and tweaks he’s made in the winery over the last couple of decades to take the Chapel Hill wines to even greater heights.

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This is a special episode of the show reporting on Australian spirits’ ambitions of becoming a $1 billion export industry by 2035.

We all know the quality is there, and that $1 billion objective is what economics firm Mandala Partners believes is achievable if the Federal Government gets behind the Australian spirits industry, just as it has done for wine over several decades now.

The spirits industry tabled its ambitions in the Federal Inquiry into Food and Beverage Manufacturing in Australia, which is currently being conducted by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Resources.

I’ve been involved in the inquiry process through my day job as Media & Communications Manager for industry body Spirits & Cocktails Australia.

This episode presents audio from four separate hearings held in Sydney, Canberra, Hobart and Melbourne between June and August, which I’ve edited together for narrative purposes.

If this is the first time you’ve listened to Drinks Adventures, nearly all of the people and brands featured in this episode have appeared previously on the show:

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We're joined this episode by Wade Rushton-Clarke, chief executive officer, Australia and New Zealand at keg rental company Konvoy Kegs.

The issue of lost and stolen kegs has long plagued brewers in Australia. But you may have seen earlier this year, a spike in instances of large-scale keg theft by opportunists who were then flogging the empty kegs off as scrap metal.

This unscrupulous practice is very financially damaging for brewers who have a lot of money tied up in kegs, which they must be able to access in a timely fashion to supply their customers. Clearly, it's the last thing that the brewing industry needs right at the moment.

The extent of the problem has been uncovered by Konvoy's technology that tracked the missing kegs to a handful of scrapyards, giving police the evidence they needed to bring the offenders to justice.

And as a result, Konvoy has been able to reduce the incidence of missing kegs in its fleet to less than one per cent.

Wade and I discussed these and other benefits of Konvoy's tracking technology in this special episode of Drinks Adventures, produced in partnership with Konvoy Kegs.

You'll hear how the tracking beacons can inform brewers how quickly their products are turning around in venues, so they can be confident that we consumers, are enjoying their beers in the best possible condition.

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